NAME
Bot::BasicBot - simple irc bot baseclass
SYNOPSIS
# with all defaults
my $bot = Bot::BasicBot->new( channels => ["#bottest"] );
$bot->run();
# with all known options
my $bot = Bot::BasicBot->new(
server => "irc.example.com",
port => "6667",
channels => ["#bottest"],
nick => "basicbot",
alt_nicks => ["bbot", "simplebot"],
username => "bot",
name => "Yet Another Bot",
ignore_list => [qw(dipsy dadadodo laotse)],
);
$bot->run();
DESCRIPTION
Basic bot system designed to make it easy to do simple bots, optionally
forking longer processes (like searches) concurrently in the background.
There are several examples of bots using Bot::BasicBot in the examples/
folder in the Bot::BasicBot tarball.
A quick summary, though - You want to define your own package that
subclasses Bot::BasicBot, override various methods (documented below),
then call "new" and "run" on it.
STARTING THE BOT
"new"
Creates a new instance of the class. Key/value pairs may be passed which
will have the same effect as calling the method of that name with the
value supplied. Returns a Bot::BasicBot object, that you can call 'run'
on later.
eg:
my $bot = Bot::BasicBot->new( nick => 'superbot', channels => [ '#superheroes' ] );
"run"
Runs the bot. Hands the control over to the POE core.
STOPPING THE BOT
To shut down the bot cleanly, use the "shutdown" method, which will
(through "AUTOLOAD") send an event of the same name to
POE::Component::IRC, so it takes the same arguments:
$bot->shutdown( $bot->quit_message() );
METHODS TO OVERRIDE
In your Bot::BasicBot subclass, you want to override some of the
following methods to define how your bot works. These are all object
methods - the (implicit) first parameter to all of them will be the bot
object.
"init"
called when the bot is created, as part of new(). Override to provide
your own init. Return a true value for a successful init, or undef if
you failed, in which case new() will die.
"said"
This is the main method that you'll want to override in your subclass -
it's the one called by default whenever someone says anything that we
can hear, either in a public channel or to us in private that we
shouldn't ignore.
You'll be passed a hashref that contains the arguments described below.
Feel free to alter the values of this hash - it won't be used later on.
who Who said it (the nick that said it)
raw_nick
The raw IRC nick string of the person who said it. Only really
useful if you want more security for some reason.
channel
The channel in which they said it. Has special value "msg" if it was
in a message. Actually, you can send a message to many channels at
once in the IRC spec, but no-one actually does this so this is just
the first one in the list.
body
The body of the message (i.e. the actual text)
address
The text that indicates how we were addressed. Contains the string
"msg" for private messages, otherwise contains the string off the
text that was stripped off the front of the message if we were
addressed, e.g. "Nick: ". Obviously this can be simply checked for
truth if you just want to know if you were addressed or not.
You should return what you want to say. This can either be a simple
string (which will be sent back to whoever was talking to you as a
message or in public depending on how they were talking) or a hashref
that contains values that are compatible with say (just changing the
body and returning the structure you were passed works very well.)
Returning undef will cause nothing to be said.
"emoted"
This is a secondary method that you may wish to override. It gets called
when someone in channel 'emotes', instead of talking. In its default
configuration, it will simply pass anything emoted on channel through to
the "said" handler.
"emoted" receives the same data hash as "said".
"noticed"
This is like "said", except for notices instead of normal messages.
"chanjoin"
Called when someone joins a channel. It receives a hashref argument
similar to the one received by said(). The key 'who' is the nick of the
user who joined, while 'channel' is the channel they joined.
This is a do-nothing implementation, override this in your subclass.
"chanpart"
Called when someone joins a channel. It receives a hashref argument
similar to the one received by said(). The key 'who' is the nick of the
user who parted, while 'channel' is the channel they parted.
This is a do-nothing implementation, override this in your subclass.
"got_names"
Whenever we have been given a definitive list of 'who is in the
channel', this function will be called. It receives a hash reference as
an argument. The key 'channel' will be the channel we have information
for, 'names' is a hashref where the keys are the nicks of the users, and
the values are more hashes, containing the two keys 'op' and 'voice',
indicating if the user is a chanop or voiced respectively.
The reply value is ignored.
Normally, I wouldn't override this method - instead, just use the names
call when you want to know who's in the channel. Override this only if
you want to be able to do something as soon as possible. Also be aware
that the names list can be changed by other events - kicks, joins, etc,
and this method won't be called when that happens.
"topic"
Called when the topic of the channel changes. It receives a hashref
argument. The key 'channel' is the channel the topic was set in, and
'who' is the nick of the user who changed the channel, 'topic' will be
the new topic of the channel.
"nick_change"
When a user changes nicks, this will be called. It receives two
arguments: the old nickname and the new nickname.
"kicked"
Called when a user is kicked from the channel. It receives a hashref
which will look like this:
{
channel => "#channel",
who => "nick",
kicked => "kicked",
reason => "reason",
}
The reply value is ignored.
"tick"
This is an event called every regularly. The function should return the
amount of time until the tick event should next be called. The default
tick is called 5 seconds after the bot starts, and the default
implementation returns '0', which disables the tick. Override this and
return non-zero values to have an ongoing tick event.
Use this function if you want the bot to do something periodically, and
don't want to mess with 'real' POE things.
Call the schedule_tick event to schedule a tick event without waiting
for the next tick.
"help"
This is the other method that you should override. This is the text that
the bot will respond to if someone simply says help to it. This should
be considered a special case which you should not attempt to process
yourself. Saying help to a bot should have no side effects whatsoever
apart from returning this text.
"connected"
An optional method to override, gets called after we have connected to
the server
"userquit"
Receives a hashref which will look like:
{
who => "nick that quit",
body => "quit message",
}
BOT METHODS
There are a few methods you can call on the bot object to do things.
These are as follows:
"schedule_tick"
Takes an integer as an argument. Causes the tick event to be called
after that many seconds (or 5 seconds if no argument is provided). Note
that if the tick event is due to be called already, this will override
it. You can't schedule multiple future events with this funtction.
"forkit"
This method allows you to fork arbitrary background processes. They will
run concurrently with the main bot, returning their output to a handler
routine. You should call "forkit" in response to specific events in your
"said" routine, particularly for longer running processes like searches,
which will block the bot from receiving or sending on channel whilst
they take place if you don't fork them.
Inside the subroutine called by forkit, you can send output back to the
channel by printing lines (followd by "\n") to STDOUT. This has the same
effect as calling "Bot::BasicBot->say".
"forkit" takes the following arguments:
run A coderef to the routine which you want to run. Bear in mind that
the routine doesn't automatically get the text of the query - you'll
need to pass it in "arguments" (see below) if you want to use it at
all.
Apart from that, your "run" routine just needs to print its output
to "STDOUT", and it will be passed on to your designated handler.
handler
Optional. A method name within your current package which we can
return the routine's data to. Defaults to the built-in method
"say_fork_return" (which simply sends data to channel).
callback
Optional. A coderef to execute in place of the handler. If used, the
value of the handler argument is used to name the POE event. This
allows using closures and/or having multiple simultanious calls to
forkit with unique handler for each call.
body
Optional. Use this to pass on the body of the incoming message that
triggered you to fork this process. Useful for interactive proceses
such as searches, so that you can act on specific terms in the
user's instructions.
who The nick of who you want any response to reach (optional inside a
channel.)
channel
Where you want to say it to them in. This may be the special channel
"msg" if you want to speak to them directly
address
Optional. Setting this to a true value causes the person to be
addressed (i.e. to have "Nick: " prepended to the front of returned
message text if the response is going to a public forum.
arguments
Optional. This should be an anonymous array of values, which will be
passed to your "run" routine. Bear in mind that this is not
intelligent - it will blindly spew arguments at "run" in the order
that you specify them, and it is the responsibility of your "run"
routine to pick them up and make sense of them.
"say"
Say something to someone. Takes a list of key/value pairs as arguments.
You should pass the following arguments:
who The nick of who you are saying this to (optional inside a channel.)
channel
Where you want to say it to them in. This may be the special channel
"msg" if you want to speak to them directly
body
The body of the message. I.e. what you want to say.
address
Optional. Setting this to a true value causes the person to be
addressed (i.e. to have "Nick: " prepended to the front of the
message text if this message is going to a pulbic forum.
You can also make non-OO calls to "say", which will be interpreted as
coming from a process spawned by "forkit". The routine will serialise
any data it is sent, and throw it to STDOUT, where POE::Wheel::Run can
pass it on to a handler.
"emote"
"emote" will return data to channel, but emoted (as if you'd said "/me
writes a spiffy new bot" in most clients). It takes the same arguments
as "say", listed above.
"notice"
"notice" will send a IRC notice to the channel. This is typically used
by bots to not break the IRC conversations flow. The message will appear
as:
-nick- message here
It takes the same arguments as "say", listed above. Example:
$bot->notice(
channel => '#bot_basicbot_test',
body => 'This is a notice'
);
"reply"
Takes two arguments, a hashref containing information about an incoming
message, and a reply message. It will reply in a privmsg if the incoming
one was a privmsg, in channel if not, and with prefixes if the incoming
one was prefixed. Mostly a shortcut method - it's roughly equivalent to
$mess->{body} = $body;
$self->say($mess);
"pocoirc"
Takes no arguments. Returns the underlying POE::Component::IRC::State
object used by Bot::BasicBot.
"channel_data"
Takes a channel names as a parameter, and returns a hash of hashes. The
keys are the nicknames in the channel, the values are hashes containing
the keys "voice" and "op", indicating whether these users are voiced or
opped in the channel. This method is only here for backwards
compatability. You'll probably get more use out of
POE::Component::IRC::State's methods (which this method is merely a
wrapper for). You can access the POE::Component::IRC::State object
through Bot::BasicBot's "pocoirc" method.
ATTRIBUTES
Get or set methods. Changing most of these values when connected won't
cause sideffects. e.g. changing the server will not cause a disconnect
and a reconnect to another server.
Attributes that accept multiple values always return lists and either
accept an arrayref or a complete list as an argument.
The usual way of calling these is as keys to the hash passed to the
'new' method.
"server"
The server we're going to connect to. Defaults to "irc.perl.org".
"port"
The port we're going to use. Defaults to "6667"
"password"
The server password for the server we're going to connect to. Defaults
to undef.
"ssl"
A boolean to indicate whether or not the server we're going to connect
to is an SSL server. Defaults to 0.
"localaddr"
The local address to use, for multihomed boxes. Defaults to undef (use
whatever source IP address the system deigns is appropriate).
A boolean to indicate whether IPv6 should be used. Defaults to undef
(use IPv4).
"nick"
The nick we're going to use. Defaults to five random letters and numbers
followed by the word "bot"
"alt_nicks"
Alternate nicks that this bot will be known by. These are not nicks that
the bot will try if it's main nick is taken, but rather other nicks that
the bot will recognise if it is addressed in a public channel as the
nick. This is useful for bots that are replacements for other
bots...e.g, your bot can answer to the name "infobot: " even though it
isn't really.
"username"
The username we'll claim to have at our ip/domain. By default this will
be the same as our nick.
"name"
The name that the bot will identify itself as. Defaults to "$nick bot"
where $nick is the nick that the bot uses.
"channels"
The channels we're going to connect to.
"quit_message"
The quit message. Defaults to "Bye".
"ignore_list"
The list of irc nicks to ignore public messages from (normally other
bots.) Useful for stopping bot cascades.
"charset"
IRC has no defined character set for putting high-bit chars into
channel. This attribute sets the encoding to be used for outgoing
messages. Defaults to 'utf8'.
"flood"
Set to '1' to disable the built-in flood protection of
POE::Compoent::IRC
"no_run"
Tells Bot::BasicBot to not run the POE kernel at the end of "run", in
case you want to do that yourself.
OTHER METHODS
"AUTOLOAD"
Bot::BasicBot implements AUTOLOAD for sending arbitrary states to the
underlying POE::Component::IRC component. So for a $bot object, sending
$bot->foo("bar");
is equivalent to
$poe_kernel->post(BASICBOT_ALIAS, "foo", "bar");
"log"
Logs the message. This method merely prints to STDERR - If you want
smarter logging, override this method - it will have simple text strings
passed in @_.
"ignore_nick"
Takes a nick name as an argument. Return true if this nick should be
ignored. Ignores anything in the ignore list
"nick_strip"
Takes a nick and hostname (of the form "nick!hostname") and returns just
the nick
"charset_decode"
Converts a string of bytes from IRC (uses "decode_irc" from IRC::Utils
internally) and returns a Perl string.
It can also takes a list (or arrayref or hashref) of strings, and return
a list of strings
"charset_encode"
Converts a list of perl strings into a list of byte sequences, using the
bot's charset. See charset_decode.
HELP AND SUPPORT
If you have any questions or issues, you can drop by in #poe @
irc.perl.org, where I (Hinrik) am usually around.
AUTHOR
Tom Insam <tom@jerakeen.org>
This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it
under the same terms as Perl itself.
CREDITS
The initial version of Bot::BasicBot was written by Mark Fowler, and
many thanks are due to him.
Nice code for dealing with emotes thanks to Jo Walsh.
Various patches from Tom Insam, including much improved rejoining,
AUTOLOAD stuff, better interactive help, and a few API tidies.
Maintainership for a while was in the hands of Simon Kent
<simon@hitherto.net>. Don't know what he did. :-)
I (Tom Insam) recieved patches for tracking joins and parts from Silver,
sat on them for two months, and have finally applied them. Thanks, dude.
He also sent me changes for the tick event API, which made sense.
In November 2010, maintainership moved to Hinrik Örn Sigurðsson
(hinrik.sig@gmail.com).
SEE ALSO
POE, POE::Component::IRC
Possibly Infobot, at http://www.infobot.org
POD ERRORS
Hey! The above document had some coding errors, which are explained
below:
Around line 1352:
Unknown directive: =head
